There's a sex disparity in Catholic confession these days; Women have fallen victim to pride and men to lust, the Vatican reported.
Perhaps the shortcomings of modern man and woman aren’t far from humanity’s biblical roots. The Enlightened Catholic blog likens the results to the original sins of Adam and Eve.
A Church scholar surveyed confessions to find the most difficult transgressions—among the traditional “seven deadly sins”—for each sex to face. Women’s ranking waspride, envy, anger lust and sloth; men’s was lust, gluttony, anger, pride, envy and greed, the BBC said.
But the traditional seven were updated last year to add some modern misdoings like “genetic modification, experiments on the person, environmental pollution, taking or selling illegal drugs, social injustice, causing poverty and financial greed.”
One thing I admire about the Catholic Church as an organization is its ability to remain constantly aware of what’s going on inthe world and taking a clear stance on contemporary conditions. Perhaps these efforts, like keeping upwith what sins are weighing heavy on parishioners’ hearts, put them in a better position to maintain followers.
In the U.S., though, more effort may be needed to get Catholics back to confession.
About a quarter of American adults are Catholic, according to research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and only a quarter of those take part in confession at least once a year. The Archdiocese of Chicago, in Cook and Lake counties, includes 2.3 million Catholics, 39 percent of the populations.
Most local Catholic churches hear confession, more officially called the sacrament of reconciliation, only once a week or by appointment, but some, like St. Peters in the Loop have priests available for confession all day on weekdays.
But when confession caught on for some Protestants last year, in non-traditional forms such as online, by message board post or video, Catholics were quick to say they'd keep their sacraments out of the virtual world... an example of the church's recognition of changing practices and its efforts to keep tradition.
But while the sacraments hold this real world significance (confession is a life or death matter, mind you), the Vatican still adopts the Internet for other uses. So I'll end with a fun link: ThePope debuted his YouTube channel last month (yes, that's right). Watch here .
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Kate Shellnutt
I’m a freelance religion reporter and blogger for the Little Things. I majored in religion and journalism as an undergrad, and I'm now completing my master's in journalism at Medill.
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